“Hi Taryn!!!!!” Ziggy exclaimed as he hopped up on the counter and looked over Taryn’s list. “What ya doin? Wanna have some fun? Can we go explore? Can we blow something up? I helped the other day! Did you hear? What ya writing?”

Taryn pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath before answering Ziggy, who she liked to refer to as the winged irritation from hell, as calmly as she could, “This is a list of things that I need to pick up from the market for our Easter Dinner.”

“Oh!! The Easter Bunny is coming! That’s right! I wonder what he’ll bring us! Do you think he needs any help? I bet I can help him!” Ziggy chattered excitedly as he bounced around the room knocking over books and papers and generally spreading chaos as he was so good at doing.

“Ziggy STOP!” Taryn shouted as she barely caught the lantern before it tipped over and set off a fire. “Ziggy, no, the Easter Bunny does NOT need your help. He needs to concentrate. He gets distracted and confused very easily. The past few years we’ve had to track down our Easter gifts because he got distracted and lost them. Please, Ziggy, PLEASE don’t try to help.”

“But Taryn, I can help. I helped Christoph. I can help the Easter Bunny and then he won’t get confused. It’ll be awesome super spectacular! Best Easter EVER!” Ziggy raced for the door leaving a scattered trail of debris behind him.

“NOOOOOO, Ziggy wa…” Taryn sputtered to a stop as the door slammed behind the little winged beast. Somehow she didn’t think this could possibly go well. Taryn began to softly bang her head on the desk as she heard Ziggy skipping off singing at the top of his lungs.

Here comes Peter Cottontail (and Ziggy)
Hoppin’ down the bunny trail
Hippity hoppin’, Easter’s on its way
(And it needs to hurry up)

Bringin’ ev’ry girl and boy
Baskets full of Easter joy
Things to make your Easter bright and gay
And I’m HELPING!
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Come see what gifts the Easter Bunny is bringing this year! Meet at the West Britain Counselor’s Hall, Tuesday, March 26th at 6:30 p.m. Pacific Time.

It’s finally here! The First EVER Origin UO Hunger Games! Please join us this Saturday, March 23rd for a fight to the death! Do you have what it takes to be the last person standing while starting with only your wits? This is an event for fun and bragging rights only. If you’ve ever wanted to try to PvP, here’s your chance. You literally have NOTHING to lose! Supplies and armor will be provided.

Please be sure to read the information for Players and Spectators. All end times listed are hard end times. We are trying to allow plenty of time for everyone who wants to come to join but once the end time is reached, no one else will be allowed in this round to play or to watch.

**Please remember, this is our FIRST attempt at this so if there are any problems, we will work them out before trying again. We are hoping to run this regularly if it’s something people enjoy enough.

Allowed for players and spectators:
1 ethy or charger. If you do not have one of these, we will provide a regular horse (players only).
1 rune book to get home
NOTHING ELSE

Players

If you are coming to play: Gates will be provided to the registration location from Yew gate, both Tram and Fel
Gates will be available from either Yew Gate beginning at 6:00 PST until 6:35 PST
Registration begins at 6:15 PST
Game scheduled to begin at 7:00 PST (or as soon as we get everyone searched and qualified)
Murder Counts – we cannot control, but we are ASKING to please not give counts
Must be present 30 minutes before event (esp if in factions). This is so that you can get out of stat loss should you happen to die prior to the beginning of the contest.
Players will be friended to the EM PvP house and required to log out and in to demonstrate they have no pets out anywhere. Once this is confirmed and they are searched, they will be sent to a “clean room” holding area.
Complete rules will be explained prior to the start of the contest.
Game ends when one person is left alive.

Spectators
Spectators ARE allowed but they must be dead (we’ll take care of that part) and are subject to the same search procedures as the contestants. Spectators are not allowed to self rez or interfere with the games in any fashion. Anyone caught doing so will be removed from the dungeon. Spectators are also limited to the same items as players and will be searched prior to be allowed into the dungeon.

If you are coming to watch: Please gather at the PvP house first floor. You can get there by hopping through the vortex at the Buc’s Den gate. We would suggest you come with an empty pack except as noted above. It will save time. Spectators will remain downstairs and outside until contestants are moved to the clean room. We will then search you, kill you and send you off to watch the fun.

Christoph looked at the papers he held and then looked at Taryn again in dismay.

“It’s just a bunch of letters all jumbled together!” he exclaimed for what felt like the hundredth time.

“It’s a cipher,” Taryn patiently explained. “The ingredients are in code. We have to unravel it to figure out how to mix the potion to destroy the machine.”

“It seems such a waste to destroy it. If only there weren’t greedy people set on using technology such as this for evil ends, think of all the benefit it would do! We could grow crops anywhere! There would never be any droughts, no ice storms, no winters! We could have temperate spring days all year around!” Christoph paced the room growing more excited as he talked.

“Be that as it may, the fact remains that there have already been deaths and disaster related to this machine. You yourself were kidnapped for heaven’s sake. This machine is too dangerous. Perhaps one day something like this can be used for good. But, for now, we need to concentrate on stopping this before things get worse,” Taryn pointed out reasonably. “The problem still remains that even if we can figure out what the components are, and several citizens were working hard on that, who can we find to mix them safely into something we can use?”

“You said you found this in the Labrynth? With all those strange bull creatures?” Christoph asked. “Then I may know just the person we need.”

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Gather at the Counselor’s Hall in West Britain, Saturday, March 16th at 7 p.m. PDT. Might want to bring your bad weather gear!

“OW!!!” yelled Taryn. She turned to swat at the winged rat known as Ziggy, but *poof* he was already gone. She looked around for whatever he had thrown or shot at her and found an arrow. A very strange looking arrow. “Oh @%#@!”

_________________________

Meet Donal at the West Britain Counselor’s Hall, Wednesday, February 13th at 6:00 p.m. PST.

Taryn rearranged the slips of paper with the numbers on them once again and tried to see a pattern in the seemingly random study guide numbers. What was so special about these particular numbers? Was there a pattern? Or were they simply random study guides left over after all the others were what…stolen? misplaced? decayed? Could Professor Quin have made sense of the numbers? What book did he pull from the shelves when they were talking? Where did he disappear to and why were they ambushed when they went back to talk to him? Where was Christoph? Had his sister Ruby really gone into hiding? Was she safe? And just what the hell had Ziggy done with the weird egg?

So many questions! TOO many!

Taryn pushed the numbers around one more time. They looked an awful lot like coordinates but there were too many of them. Perhaps some were coordinates and others were decoys? She went to the bookshelf and pulled down the large book of maps that Donal kept. Opening the book, she began looking for anything that looked like it might be a clue.

“Even if it’s a needle in a haystack, if Barbossa is somehow connected to this, we have to figure it out sooner rather than later,” Taryn thought with frustration.

Running her finger down the page she had turned to, Taryn spied a marking. Surely not? There? She compared the numbers to the page and rearranged them just a bit. It could fit. Possibly. It was at least worth checking into. At this point, any lead had to be followed.

———————————————————————-
Meet Taryn Sullivan at the West Britain Counselor’s Hall, Saturday, February 9th at 7:00 p.m. PST.

Please meet Taryn Sullivan Saturday, February 2nd @ 7 P.M. PST at the West Britain Counselor’s Hall to discuss the scientist Christoph Deiderik and any information that has been discovered.

Intrigued?

Want to learn more?

Then Follow this link to read all about it!

Let the games begin!

“M Faine Morgan! Put that down this instant!” Sangria said sternly as Faine looked at her innocently.

“Oh c’mon, I was only moving it nearer to the bowl for you, you don’t have to use ALL of my names for crying out loud,” Faine replied with a grin backing away from the bag of flour and rolling pin.

Sangria rolled her eyes as she turned back to the recipe book. “Mmm hmm, last time you “only moved” something in here we were cleaning soot marks off the ceiling and flour out of the light fixtures for three weeks.”

“Oh please,” Faine scoffed, “It only took 2 weeks and 2 days to clean that up. And besides, how was I supposed to know that Salt Peter wasn’t a substitute for salt? It seemed logical. AND I made a brand new oven and replaced all the windows with brand new ones!”

Sangria took a deep breath and gathered her patience. She loved Faine dearly but Faine’s disasters in the kitchen had not been exaggerated by the citizens of Origin. How any one person could possibly cause such chaos from a simple recipe still amazed Sangria. Hoping to distract Faine, Sangria asked, “I thought you were decorating some of the towns for Christmas?”

“Done,” Faine replied. “Luna is all decorated. Decorated around Fel Yew Gate. Brit bank doesn’t need any more deco since it’s perfect for any season. Besides, weren’t you going to get the Christmas Tree? I’ve done all I can until a tree is up.”

“Oh darn! I knew I forgot something! The tree. But it has to be perfect and I don’t know if I should take that on by myself,” Sangria said.

Faine giggled in reply, “Silly goose, of course you don’t. The citizens will help. I’m sure they’d love a nice winter jaunt to find the perfect tree. And I’ll clean out the attic and get the decorations ready!”

Sangria thought it over for a moment and, completely missing the mischievous gleam in Faine’s eye said, “What a wonderful idea! We’ll do it this weekend. I’m sure with their help we can find the perfect Christmas tree!”

As Sangria hurried off to post the notice for the citizens of the meeting time, she failed to see Faine turning to the cupboard and pulling a recipe book from her secret hiding place behind the pickled beets. Grinning, Faine turned the pages dreaming of having the place all to herself on Saturday.
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EM Sangria requests your help finding the perfect Christmas Tree on Saturday, December 8th. Meet at 7 p.m. PST at the Counselor’s Hall.